Photo by Frank Cone on Pexels
Ruby follows Grampa Joe down the winding path to Okauchee Lake, wondering if she should tell him. She breathes in the mossy, balsam-bright scent of the woods while he asks about the drive, traffic, did she eat – their conversation as careful as his shuffling steps, the absence of Gramma a weight between them.
She’s been coming north to her grandparents since she was five. Back then, her mom would drop her off from June to August. Now Ruby has to squeeze her visit into just one week, but the cranes are still a highlight. She remembers the first time she saw them: their pale elegance and caps of red, spindly legs and a fuzzy golden baby the size of a chicken scurrying beside them.
The path widens and Okauchee Lake shimmers in front of them. Sure enough, past the water lilies, there are the sandhill cranes. Always a trio, though the colts only stay with their parents a year.
“See?” Grampa Joe’s voice trembles.
Water spiders dance on the surface of the lake. There’s a smell of crushed pine needles, a tinge of sulphur from the marsh on the opposite bank.
Even if he’s shocked, Grampa Joe is the only person she wants to tell.
Across the water, the cranes are on the move. The adults lower their heads, curved necks bright against the marsh wild-timothy and sedges. Their colt blazes the color of copper in the evening sun.
“I’m pregnant.” Once the words are out, Ruby can’t stop. “I want to keep it. It will mean raising the baby on my own. I’ll be okay, won’t I? I don’t want to be like-” Her words are like skipping stones across the lake, her mother’s unsaid name the ripples.
Grampa Joe stares at her, his eyes a watery blue, and looks away.
Chipmunks chatter in the towering white pines that skirt the lake. Gramma used to hang bird feeders from their branches and wait in her house dress until the chickadees fluttered and swooped.
Across Okauchee Lake, the cranes disappear into the tall grass, only two red-streaked heads visible.
Grampa says quietly, almost to the water, almost to the woman who isn’t there. “Wish you weren’t doing it on your own.”
His face is pinched when he turns to Ruby. “But you’ll be a good mother.”
“I hope so.” She thinks of the stability her grandparents gave her when her mom couldn’t.
“I know so.” He reaches for her hand. “Be nice to have a little one around. You kept Senja and I young.”
As he says Senja’s name, they both well up, grip each other’s hands so tight it hurts.
Ruby imagines bringing her child north, listening to crickets sing in the tall grass, catching baby tree frogs in their hands. She imagines the Fourth of July fireworks, teaching her child about cranes and deer instead of traffic lights and stranger danger.
Every year they’ll return, for as long as they have with Grampa Joe, and make a new trio.
Author's Note:
I have to admit I go in swings and roundabouts with self-care. For months I will make time for the important things: connecting with friends, a midweek dash to Tate Modern, pilates and yoga, growing things for the allotment, cooking.
But then my life will blow up and I’ll be running around with my pants on fire. It gets intense at times. My favourite time of the year is the summer, when I take my family to my dad's lakeside cabin in Michigan. We kayak, eat too much ice cream, visit with relatives, make campfires. That’s the location that inspired this story.
Cole Beauchamp is a queer writer based in London. She has been published widely and shortlisted for the Bridport, Bath and WestWord Flash Fiction prizes. She lives with her girlfriend and has two children.
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